Jess: The Set-Up

Ok, so I'm going to start going through different elements of my final film. Some aspects will more developed to make the film while others may just be simple considerations. And I'm going to start with the Pop-Up Book setting.



 There's a shot from the storyboard displaying the book. It's made from about 60 layers of flat rectangular planes arranged to make a 3D book. Took a couple days of arranging and nit-picking (over an unnecessarily long period of a few weeks) to finish up and here's the result 



   I had a vision of how events would take place across the surface of the book. Through a  system of rooms, which each room containing a different environment and appropriate characters. There'd be either 2 or 3 rooms and Jess would walk through them as she recounts events. So practically realising them was the next challenge, keeping in mind, that the pages would turn. Foldable environments were key.



   But I quickly realised (as well as other people) the the center parting may have proved a problem, the dip in the pages is quite noticable. I thought about embracing the crease and having a running joke of having the characters visibly jump over the gap whenever the time came. I thought that would further cement the idea of the book and add a little more humour (if people didn't see the space and fell in accidently, for example). But that didn't pan out, because basically, I needed a floor. Also the space available with a three room set-up wasn't enough, so 1 or 2 rooms on one double page spread is all I'm allowed.



Then it came to actually designing the locations. The above ones are the initial university kitchen and the school corridor. You can see in the school passage on the left through the doorway the pink wall. That doorway is the practice method of handling that mechanic of moving through rooms. I plan on using camerawork to minimise the presence of other rooms to keep the focus on the current location. I figured that doorway is way too large.



This is the current university student house setting in development. I think the colours are good, suited for a calm living room environment. However it feel quite bare, in need of an Ikea visit or two. 

12 days of Universitmas

It's been just a couple days (3 weeks) since my last post, so I felt it's about time for an update. At this very moment in time, I'm sitting on the cusp of week 12 of this semester. That fairly tedious information until I mention that the semester is 13 weeks in total, which means, as one can imagine, hand-in dates are looming, tensions are rising and haphazard explosions into lyrical verse are at an all-time high!

On my personal basis though, remember how I expressed before about how I wasn't happy with the place I was at in my work? Well I feel a little better on that front now, having gone a little bit in the way of rectifying that. The idea for my final film, 'Jess Sturich', was pretty locked before I returned to uni this year. I'd even sorted out my storyboard by the beginning of september. This put me in a better position than a lot of my class before the year even began. So with that sorted, I didn't really consult my lecturers with it, instead letting them get on with other students and focusing on the other projects we have. It was only until about week 7/8 that I properly went through my story with a lecturer and was given an honest evaluation of the impossibility of my idea. To say the very least, that meeting didn't go according to plan and sat me behind of schedule, going some of the way to prompt that post from earlier. However since then I've been prepping the pre-production elements of 'Jess Sturich' like finalising a doable story, character designs, colour schemes, a storyboard and getting some of the way through a script. While I'm not in a perfect place, and there's still a lot to do, I feel in a better position now.

All this probably goes some of the way to explain why I haven't had the time to post anything. I've been working pretty hard on a live professional brief as well as and devoting some time to our dreaded dissertation. It has been a busy few weeks. But why should you have to take my word for it? Shouldn't I put up some proof of my labours, huh? That's what you want to see really. Well...that's where I have to let you down. An excerpt from a partially completed dissertation would be boring. Posting the storyboard for 'Jess Sturich' would be even more boring and I'm not even sure how much I can say about the professional project (even though I'm probably being far to particular for my own good). But rest assured, soon a torrent of imagery will come, bear with.

But in the meanwhile, here's a couple videos I found for my very own University of Wolverhampton. I think they're in the same vein as University of Lincoln adverts. They look pretty fun!

Wolverhampton University Ad from Charlotte McCabe on Vimeo.


Wolverhampton University Viral from Patrick Fowler on Vimeo.


University of Wolverhampton - Viral Advertisement from Graham D. Lock on Vimeo.

Half-Time

I worked out that today marks the halfway point for this semester. Currently I'm in week 7 of a couple 13 week modules, and with Wednesday being the midpoint of the business week, I'm now closer to the end than to the beginning. What a scary, depressing thing to realise.


On review, I think I've spent my time as wisely as I could and I've learned a little bit, but on retrospect of my progress is, I don't feel satisfied with where I am. The workload got very heavy immediately and juggling the several balls that were thrown my way left my final film (the project I most want to work on) on the back burner. My final film in particular will require a hefty amount of pre-production in order to get going. In fact, the setting up of backgrounds, characters and scenery elements is going to be the hardest part of the task, not even the animation. And I should be, by week 7, well into producing those parts. Nevertheless, because of animation social distractions and professional practices, I'm barely out of character development stage. It can get slightly aggravating. However, now that I've assessed and realised my situation, I can take steps to rectify it. I mean, it would be much worse if I was behind in my work and didn't realise it, at least now I can do something about it...and hopefully without upsetting my professional practices.


On a different note, we went to London today. Here's a picture of me with a living statue:

You like that? Good. It was an alright trip. It mainly involved walking around, looking at artwork, walking around some more, looking at historical artefacts and walking around looking for the lost people who weren't walking around fast enough. Also, despite my earlier ranting, I've managed to assemble a test of the opening scene of my film, the name of which I've codenamed "Jess Sturich". This is just to test the timing of the opening scene, none of the visuals are not those intended for the final piece.

First Week Review

So after just over a week back at uni I've now experienced an introduction to all the modules I'll be working on and essentially what the final year of my animation degree entails. Wow. This is looking to be quite a year. If I could liken it to top trumps the stats for my card would be:


Social Activity: 0
Well Rested: 0
Healthy Diet: 0
Normal Sperm Count because a laptop ISN'T sitting on your lap day in, day out: 0
Solid animation to make it all worth it: ∞


So I felt I'd give a small review of the week and introduce the modules/projects I'm aiming to work on for the next few months.


First day of the week, Monday, first module of the day had me face the granddaddy of all modules. Everything that my university education at Wolverhampton had been gearing up towards. The Major Project. This is the module that will drag and haul from me my final film. The film that I take out into the world to showcase my abilities and craft. I'd be thinking and working on my final film for a fraction of the summer beforehand so I was in a slightly better position than one who hadn't. Thankfully, my lecturer decided to use the time for a basic introduction to what's going to happen over the academic year and what's expected of us. He spoke with a kind understanding that this process towards the final film will be a gradual one and a personal one. The road needs to be tread carefully, but with a sense of organised urgency...eight months will pass by quickly.


The same day, brought along the Professional Animation Project. The brief involves finding and working towards the completion of a live project with a real client. The overall aim I imagine, to help us go through the motions of finding jobs as budding animators in the real world. After saying that, I'm not sure if it somewhat undermines the idea when several jobs and options were laid out in front of us for the picking. These were largely an assortment of stings and competitions, including making a sting for the prestigious British Animation Awards, making a sting for e4 (although the competition isn't open, we presume it will be), entering a piece for the 11 second club, as well as possibly entering a piece for the DepicT competition. I am very grateful to have opportunities laid at my feet and excited as to what I could make based on the varying assignments. On the other hand, this is only day 1 and now I've been tasked with my final film as well as several professional pieces. The lesson ended with the idea that decisions and ideas needed to be made and had by the next time we meet. My timetable is packed already.


Fast forward to Thursday, or the new Animation Club day. This is the day used to host the (now 1 year old) animation club. Between the hours of 10am and 12pm, this is an organised time to come in and ask questions to not just the tutors but other students too. In the past we tried to set up some running projects (that may or may not have fallen into obscurity) but mostly we'd be able to get on with work with the help of all those available. For the first club meeting of the year, some of my peers and I organised for the motion capture suite to be open to us so we could take the new 1st years through a tutorial of how it works and the possibilities they have. The trial went less than admirable. A combination of remembering how to use the program and just getting the system to work in the first place made for around 40-45 minutes of faffing around a PC while 30 students stood bored in a small white room wondering if something was supposed to happen soon. Eventually they just left. And I don't blame them. I imagine they were contemplating it for a while but it just took one brave individual to pioneer the movement. I'll tell you, the embarrassment you feel when 30 animation students just walk out of your failed tutorial is something slightly comparable to a very audible fart in a public situation. It's uncomfortable. And your the source. Everyone knows it. And no-one will say it.


On Friday I had the first Pre-Production lecture which was great because it's main brief was to tie in the work with the Major Project with that module. Essentially get the final film work to a certain level to match the hand-in dates on that lecture. I think it'll be useful for driving my work forward at an acceptable pace and also good for the ole' timetable for the fact that it's the same work that I'd already be working on. If 'Pre-Production' were another module entirely like 'Sound Editing' with it's own set of assignment brief and deadlines then I'd have a whole new host of other stuff to work on as well as everything else. So I'm happy the work is still at the same level.


Friday also brought our first dissertation lecture. While originally supposed to be on Tuesday, it got shifted to Friday so I was cheerily without introduction to (apparently) the only thing that validates my university course choice as a BA degree. The brief is a 1200 word dissertation research proposal by week 5 (3 week froms now) and the 4800 word dissertation in for week 13. As expected of the paper, it must be overly researched and stuffed to the tip with critical opinion from people I'm sure no-one's ever heard of. I'm going to detail right now that I have a huge disdain for the essay module. Not my lecturer. She's a lovely woman and tries very hard. But the idea that a single essay is the one thing that makes an Animation BA, an Animation BA, as in, without it, it's not a proper full fledged degree, is disgusting to me. The requirement for a written submission for a subject as obviously far-detached from writing as Animation sounds like a crazy old elitist law that someone in the grand library of legislature lost the manuscript for anyone and/or hasn't bothered to revise yet. I'm not bad at writing, I tend to find essays fairly easy, I just disagree with the premise of it whole-heartedly, yet am enforced to part-take of it. Starting with damn-near deciding the dissertation topic then and there and promising two appropriate research sources by next lecture.


Well it was a lovely week, that made me feel after 5 days (only 2 of them actually) that I was already behind and would be spending the year catching up. Even though I don't think that's the case, that's what I feel, which I think is a good feeling. That feeling pushes me to work. Not only work, but work efficiently. It's exciting and worrying. Terror and anticipation. Joy and LSD. Yeah, something along those lines.